June 2015

June is almost over, I'm glad that peak period has ended and everything went smoothly. We were really concerned as this year's June had more first time guests than usual, we are always wary about taking in new dogs, most people might think that this is purely good news, which is true at some point but we do have our concerns.
Health
I noticed that many owners either forget or intentionally do not want to notify us when their dogs are not well or have history of medical conditions. I very much understand that some thinks certain problems are not serious and will not affect their dogs but we always appreciate if we can at least be notified beforehand. It gives us better assurance that we will be able to handle these dogs in times of special needs, you never know what could happen if this medical condition reappear suddenly, many of these people are also not experienced with dogs and tend to take things for granted. I always hear people saying that their dogs are fine and healthy, only to notice that we were not notified of certain problems, I am lucky to be able to spot tiny issues, so a slight limp or skin problem will be noticed sooner or later. Knowing about the history of the guest's problem can give us better control and take necessary actions if anything happens, even a slight allergy to certain food is very important to us.

Behavior
Before taking in the guests, we will always make sure we know about the breed, gender and also whether or not they are sterilized. A dog that is sterilized or not makes a big difference, mainly because non sterilized dogs can create unnecessary problems for other guests as well as themselves, those that are not sterilized usually showcase much higher stress level than other dogs, this is something that I have been noticing for many, many years. Therefore we will always have to balance these dogs to make sure that everyone will be safe and happy during their stay. There are many dogs that has serious separation anxiety, some do not enjoy their food and a small number of them can be aggressive, new guests are harder to predict so it can be stressful for us if more than 1 guest has problems like this, you may not think about this, but there are regular nights where we do not sleep to constantly check on the guests that has problems, in the day time we still spend the same amount of time to bond with them. So if a guest comes and happen to have some problems that we are not notified of, we will be doubling or even tripling the amount of work predicted.

Overall we did not encounter any serious issues, owners also followed the flow to keep everything in check. We may be one of the strictest place in Singapore but rest assure that we do this all for the sake of the guests, because of this I do notice that dog hotels are changing their policy and standard throughout these 3 years. We started in 2012 and our goal was to hope that we can change the standards of dog services in Singapore, and I am proud to say that we succeeded and have played a small part in these changes.

Our program had always placed training first, because only proper training and upbringing can keep a dog happy, I have received a kind feedback we might've been too straightforward when talking to owners about their dogs, with this I totally agree that we do need to tone down sometimes. However, everyone should also understand our program and know that training is very important to us because stressed dogs are everywhere, many owners do not know nor wish to believe that their dog is unhappy, we do not like to hide this fact so sometimes we might've explained too much, but do bear in mind that everything we say does not benefit us, it actually benefit the dogs instead if owners can do their part to change for them.

I truly wish my dream of seeing more happy and carefree dogs will be fulfilled one day!

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